Getting a website to rank high in search results usually requires a holistic approach. You need to work on on-page elements, but also implement initiatives outside your own website. This will help you build greater authority and achieve higher rankings.
What is off-page SEO?
By definition, off-page SEO refers to activities carried out outside your own website. The goal, as always, is to improve rankings in the search engines. Off-page SEO work, and especially work with links pointing to your website, is a core part of basic SEO. By executing off-page efforts effectively, you demonstrate to search engines and users that your site is popular and recognized across the web in general. When you are mentioned on other high-quality websites, and other reputable sites use you as a source, search engines see that authoritative pages online vouch for you—and they love that!
What is the difference between off-page and on-page?
Put simply, on-page SEO is about optimizing individual pages so they can achieve organic visibility. Off-page SEO is about demonstrating to search engines that your website has strong overall credibility and value. This means that off-page SEO partly determines how high your website ranks in the search results. On-page SEO, on the other hand, determines which specific pages on your website gain visibility. It’s of course not black and white; how well you work with on-page can also influence the overall visibility you achieve. But this is one way to distinguish between the two approaches.
Even though there are differences between the two approaches, it is important to understand that within SEO everything is interconnected. The first, and perhaps most important, step you need to take to earn high-quality links to your website is to create strong and relevant content.
Why is off-page SEO important?
As mentioned, working with off-page SEO is a crucial part of building the credibility and authority of your website. These are factors search engines use when assessing and ranking websites. When high-quality websites link to your site, you both satisfy Google’s algorithm and increase awareness of your own content. It works as a form of marketing, where links from other popular sites also strengthen users’ awareness of your brand. This allows you to be visible to more potential customers, including outside your own channels.
Link building
As mentioned, the essence of off-page is to build authority by gaining mentions and links from other high-quality websites. These links are therefore a crucial part of your off-page efforts; without them, search engines will not recognize that the mentions are connected to your domain. Getting these links to your website is called link building in professional terms. Links from other websites to your pages are called backlinks. Increasing the number of backlinks is beneficial, but it is also important that they come from strong websites. Links from sites that search engines highly value will generate greater impact for your website.
Here are some tips for acquiring high-quality backlinks:
Mapping
Identify which websites mention your brand or anything related to your company or employees that do NOT link to your website. This is a very good place to start, and the path to securing a link is short. All you need to do is send a friendly request asking if they can include a link in the text where they already mention your brand.
Listings on industry websites
Are there websites that list relevant players in your industry? Then you need to secure a spot on that list! Reach out and politely ask to be added. There are several places where member companies are listed, so you can check what the membership requirements are and whether it’s worth it.
Think creatively about where you can get coverage
It’s not necessarily ONLY websites that talk about your industry that can be relevant to get mentioned on. By targeting a bit more broadly, you can open up more opportunities for backlinks. If there is a site that covers a topic that is relevant to you, regardless of industry, it may still be possible to get a link. Maybe someone shares your philosophy on customer relationships or ways of working? If they refer to best practices, a link to you could be valuable. It’s perfectly fine to reach out politely and put yourself forward. But it’s important that the website you contact is thematically relevant!
Illegal link building
Another important point to mention when it comes to backlinks is that using the right approach is crucial. Manipulating links in various ways is penalized by search engines, so you should absolutely avoid doing that.
- Do not pay anyone to link to your website
- Do not use so-called “link farms”: websites created solely to link to another site in order to boost its popularity.
- Google cracks down on link wheels as a strategy: the idea is that site A links to B, B to C, and so on to site F, which eventually links back to site A.
The essence of this is that it is important for link building to happen in an organic way. It is acceptable to ask relevant websites if they would like to link to your website, but do not manipulate links for the sake of rankings. To avoid illegal strategies, it is important that the websites you contact about linking have a natural connection to your website or field of expertise, and that they choose to link to you voluntarily.
Non-link-related off-page SEO
There is a strong focus on link building in off-page SEO, but other marketing activities can also increase your website’s popularity and authority. Ultimately, off-page SEO is about creating various references to your website from elsewhere on the internet.
Some types of non-link-related off-page work can, for example, include:
- Guest blogging
- Social media marketing
- Influencer marketing
- PR
When you carry out activities and projects like this to strengthen SEO, it is also important to keep relevance in mind. It is crucial that the people you contact and the places where you seek mentions are thematically relevant to your website. Otherwise, the search engines may penalize your strategy. Moreover, as mentioned, the most important thing is that users find content they consider relevant and that meets their expectations.
